


the last to fall

by cabinfever



Series: towards a burning sun [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Also Messenger Cor, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cor visits the Amicitia house, Gen, dad cor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 14:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12866904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinfever/pseuds/cabinfever
Summary: Everything in a soldier’s life is temporary. This is the one place where maybe he was allowed to keep something for himself.In the wake of the dawn and the king's return and all the grief that comes with it, Cor allows himself a moment of peace in the ruins of Insomnia.





	the last to fall

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a companion to "let him be the king of ashes". It contains spoilers for chapters 12/13.

The king is stable.

For now, at least, his breathing has steadied. 

He’d left the Citadel knowing that Noctis’s friends were in the infirmary, standing watch while he recovered. He keeps thinking about the empty, cold rage on Gladio’s face, and the blank heartbreak in Ignis’s eyes, and the way that Noctis’s blood had only made Prompto look more pale and stricken, streaked across his face like paint.

After everything, the king still cannot bear to stay with them.

There’s nothing else Cor can do for him tonight. It seems that in his efforts to bolster the Citadel’s defenses against any threat, he’d forgotten to protect the king from himself. There’s only so much a marshal is good for, and the only king Cor has ever truly known has been Regis.

And even then, there hadn’t been much he could have done for him.

So Cor leaves.

He won’t go far, of course. The city still needs him, and the Citadel, and maybe the king once the burning of his grief fades into ashes. Cor knows where he’s going. In a time like this, there is only one place that will soothe his rattled nerves. This palace is too much Cor turns his back on the Citadel and tugs his collar up for warmth, heading towards the gates.

He wears the shadows easily enough, but there’s hardly any need for stealth. When he approaches the gates of the Citadel, the Crownsguard soldiers both recognize him and wave him through with murmurs of respect. They don’t have any reason to stop the Marshal. One even murmurs  _ Immortal _ to his partner as Cor strides away, and Cor’s glad that the darkness masks his grimace. It seems there are some names that never get old.

Cor hunches his shoulders against the wind and steps into the night.

Insomnia - beautiful Insomnia, broken Insomnia - glitters coldly in the moonlight. In this district, at least, there are still shards of glass on the ground from shattered skyscrapers. The empty windows gape at him from above, just black maws amidst gleaming, half-rusted girders. Rubble no longer litters the street proper, but the pavement is still dented and cracked where dropships and kings found their ends during the Fall. Cor, out of some morbid curiosity, purposely steps into one of the hollows in the asphalt as he goes, marveling at the size. It gives him some sort of satisfaction to know that he is walking in the footsteps of kings.

Even now, there are still things more powerful than the Immortal.

His destination isn’t far. Stepping out of the crater, he can already see that he has just one turn left until he’s reached it. It looms out of the darkness when he reaches it, half-lit by a flickering street light.

The Amicitia house is mercifully intact. Maybe not mercifully - maybe miraculously. Perhaps even the gods and kings had known that this place, somehow, is special. The last time Cor had been here was a few months into the Night, when the Empire was in shambles and Insomnia was free of shackles or life or a king. Back then, it had been dark too, but dark in the way that feels unclean. Dark in the way that feels hopeless. Under the moon and stars, this place feels achingly familiar. Pale and stoic and barely damaged, it remains a bastion of the old ways in the middle of the shattered city.

Home.

Cor’d be lying to himself if he said that his Crownsguard-issue apartment was ever anything like a home. This place, Clarus’s place, was always twice as welcoming.

He approaches carefully, scanning the streets for any signs of life. Insomnia has been infested lately, and it’ll be a while before the streets are safe again. There’re a few dusty scraps that fly across his path. Someone’s clothing, maybe, long lost to the effects of the Scourge. But that’s it. The coast seems to be clear for now, and he makes it to the front door without much trouble.

Someone’s closed the door since the time he’d visited ten years ago. Cor hopes that it was just Gladio coming home at long last, and that not too many people have deigned to tarnish the legacy of the Shields. When he carefully, slowly pushes the door open, he finds the house, though damaged, still largely untouched. He turns from the stairs and heads towards the place that has always been a magnet of sorts for him.

His feet know the way that his heart is urging him on, and he has always trusted his instincts. He lets old memories and foolish daydreams tug him towards the living room in the corner of the house, half-remembering the clink of glasses as Clarus sets out tea.

_ “Tea for three today?” Cor calls through the house as he hangs his coat on the hook by the door. _

_ Someone laughs from the sitting room, and Regis comes to the door, leaning against the threshold and grinning across the house at Cor. He looks shockingly domestic like this, smiling in the soft light of Clarus’s house. “Disappointed?” he asks. _

_ Cor feigns a groan and toes off his shoes. “I thought I could go one day without seeing my boss,” he laments. _

_ “Play nice, Cor,” Clarus rumbles from inside the sitting room. “That’s the king.” _

_ Cor studies Regis carefully. He’s still in his court clothes; he probably just ended up walking home with Clarus instead of returning to his own rooms to change. It’s an incongruous look in the middle of the house, but not entirely unwelcome. This place still belongs to the Amicitias, after all. The weight of their legacy clings to the king’s shoulders, keeping him safe while he’s within these walls. That alone makes Cor feel more at ease, knowing that his oldest friend is safe.  _

Cor follows the memory forward, tracing old footsteps over dusty piles and the faint debris of an invasion and a fight. Glass and other unspeakable rubble crunches and gives beneath his boots, crumbled into dust by his quiet exploration.

Dreamlike, he wanders through the darkened rooms. He’s been in enough shattered homes during the Night to recognize the chill up his spine, like the ghosts of the house are watching him. Just like that, it feels like he’s back in Lucis, searching cabins for survivors. Without the moon above him right now, he can almost trick himself into thinking he’s back in the simplicity of survival and war. The thought of a fight sends a new shiver through his body, prickling along his skin with static.

He shakes his head to quell the mounting energy.  _ Not tonight,  _ he thinks to himself.  _ Not now. _

The moment he crosses the threshold into the living room, he feels immediately calmer. This place always was a safer place for him. Even in its neglected state, it exudes a warm sense of familiarity. Everything in a soldier’s life is temporary. This is the one place where maybe he was allowed to keep something for himself.

He sinks down onto the couch.

Somehow, he smiles.

It’s dusty and miserable, yes, and brutally uncomfortable now that it has been neglected, but Cor won’t give up this feeling. In a way, it’s just like coming home. His memories tug at his senses, filling his ears with the recollection of ceramic cups on the table and the low, even rumble of Clarus’s laugh. If he closes his eyes, he can feel the corners of his lips tug up in a reluctant smile at some long-forgotten joke. A bad one, no doubt, if Regis was the one telling it.

It’s a nice thought nonetheless.

Peace, yes, and affection - they had colored every visit here. No matter what, Cor has always felt safe in this house. 

But still-

_ “You dote on the boy too much.” Clarus sets down his tea on the table with a firmness just shy of making the dish clatter. “He needs to learn discipline.” _

_ “You hardly give him enough love,” Cor snorts. “He’s just a boy, Clarus.” _

_ “He must learn the weight of his responsibilities.” _

_ Cor tightens his grip on his tea. “Gladio needs to be a child before he can be a Shield.” _

_ “You know nothing about raising a child.” _

_ That reminds Cor of thumb wars past bedtime and the muted shock and glee in Gladio’s eyes when offered a chance to play. It strikes at something that has been brewing in his chest for too long. “You can’t say a thing about parenting when you and Regis-” _

_ Clarus looks at him sharply. “When we what, Cor?” _

_ “When you neglect your sons,” Cor snaps.  _

_ “Cor.” That’s all Clarus says, but somehow it conveys every ounce of shock and hurt and anger that the King’s Shield feels. It warns him to watch his words. It warns him to know his place. _

_ Cor’s done being careful. _

_ There’s the scent of ozone in the air. _

_ Clarus, without breaking his gaze, mutters, “Stop that, Regis.” _

_ “I’m not doing a thing,” Regis says, voice low and calm and curious. He’s just watching them. He’s always just watching. _

_ “The lightning, Regis,” Clarus almost hisses. “Not in my house.” _

_ “I’m not doing anything,” Regis repeats, and there’s a note of something darker in his voice. It’s not quite worry, but it’s getting there. _

_ Cor’s fingers twitch. Something in his heart urges caution, but the static in the air does not fade. Maybe Clarus and Regis have figured out his hardly-veiled secret by now; maybe not. Cor can’t find it in himself to care right now. _

_ “I love my son, Cor,” Regis tells him, and it almost sounds like a threat. “More than anything. More than life. Do not forget that.” _

_ Cor wants so badly to believe him. He wants so badly to forget this argument and enjoy their company like he should be. But this is not just his problem, and it goes beyond the three of them and their quiet circle and warm drinks and platitudes. He has spent too long protecting the sons of his friends to let their wellbeing be set aside in the pursuit of something bigger. “You are so set on some distant goal that you won’t even consider the people you are setting aside to get there.” _

_ “If you mean the child-” _

_ “You don’t get to mention him,” Cor half-snarls to Clarus. “Not when it’s your fault that he’s stuck with some engineers who will never raise him right.” Still territorial, and he hasn’t seen the child in years. “There are others.” _

_ “Your son, for one. And look at that Scientia boy. How long will you set him on a fruitless mission?” _

_ “What do you mean?” Regis asks, voice betraying that Cor has found some thread of the truth. _

_ “I know grief when I see it,” Cor says, emboldened by the lightning on his fingertips, “and you have been grieving for years.” He leaves it at that. _

_ “Cor-” _

_ “I have to go,” Cor interrupts, and he collects his jacket, hiding the sparks at his fingers with the comforting darkness of Lucian black. The color reminds him of his duty to king and country and god, and he can’t bring himself to meet their eyes.  _

_ He storms out of the living room, away from his safety. Away from his campfire. Tonight, it’s unsafe. Tonight, he feels too much like a fifteen year old boy fueled by spite and pride and misguided arrogance, too loyal for his own good and too passionate to know what’s dangerous. _

_ They can’t know. Nobody can know. _

Cor stands up out of the memory, chasing the shade of himself into what must have ended up being a night of sulking and hiding and pulling lightning from the air. He regrets saying what he did, but only a little bit.

The memory leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, like old tea. 

He makes his way to the office on the same floor. The door’s already ajar; it’s easy enough to push it open and shine a light onto the room within.

It’s almost as if Clarus could have just stepped out for a little while. There are papers strewn across the desk, shifted by time and wind through the house’s open wounds, but mostly intact. It seems that if there were any looters or attackers during the Night, they hardly found an office to be worth their time.

Cor’s spent enough time in this room, up late past official Citadel hours, curled up in the corner of the office with coffee in his hand, quietly discussing security and war with Clarus. His friend had had the in with the Council that Cor never did, and of course Regis was tight-lipped about, well,  _ everything  _ that had to do with the war, but Clarus had understood Cor’s desire to help. Even when Cor had still been in his early twenties in the beginning of Regis’s reign, still shedding the evidence of his adolescence, Clarus had trusted him. Cor always did appreciate that.

But he knows his friend, too. He knows that Clarus, for all that he indulged Cor, would never tell him the whole truth. There are things that he’d known about Lucis that he would never have dared tell Cor. But they need to know. Ignis won’t be able to do this sort of investigation anymore. Cor can. This is what he can do for the king tonight in lieu of striking down the demons in Noct’s own mind. That’s why he sits down carefully in the desk chair and slides open the drawer.

There are a few files in there, carefully stacked. They’re unlabeled, as if Clarus had known that people would make a casual perusal of his work. He would’ve known what they were, of course. Clarus always knew.

Cor shuffles past the first file - Niflheim intel, most of which was his own work - and sets it aside. Old wars. Old times. There’s not even a Niflheim anymore.

The final folder, however, gives him pause. He flips it open and takes a cursory inventory of its contents. And he stops.

Some of the handwriting is his own.

He knows these files. He’s been looking for these for years.

Prompto’s files.

Long withheld, whether out of shame or secrecy or a combination of both, they have been out of his reach for years. His clearance should have afforded him access to these files, especially since he ran the mission that retrieved the child from Niflheim, but somehow Clarus and Regis had deemed it best that he did not have access to the boy. Some half-baked excuses had barred his path, warning of conflicts of interest and the necessity of focus if he was to adequately lead the Crownsguard in its protection of the king and Crown City.

All lies.

He tugs out a page from the file - a forged birth certificate, giving legitimacy to this illegal child. Proof that the king and his comrades lied to the world to give a chance to the clone of the enemy who would one day raze their city. 

And there it is.

_ Prompto,  _ says the first line, and then  _ Argentum,  _ in Cor’s chicken-scratch handwriting.

Before it, though, scratched out by a single bold line, is the faint scrawl of  _ Leonis _ .

Cor frowns down at it, running a thumb over the decades-old ink. He scarcely remembers filling out this form, but he still remembers the soaring hope and the crushing disappointment that had followed soon after. 

_ “They’re good people,” Regis tells him, putting an official stamp on the document. “The little child will be fine with them.” _

_ “It’s not safe to leave him with civilians,” Cor insists, trying desperately to keep his voice level. _

_ Regis studies him carefully. There’s a hint of sympathy growing in his eyes, but it doesn’t soften his expression. Still the king. Always the king. “It’s not safe to leave him with you, either,” he tells Cor quietly, and that’s the end of it. _

Cor frowns down at the paper. There’s hardly a bureaucracy to enforce old rules anymore. Maybe he could just-

No. It wouldn’t be right. He hasn’t earned it.

Still, though, he traces the lines of his own handwriting and remembers a child he’d given up once. 

He’s thankful, really, that it hasn’t snowed in years. It keeps him from remembering Niflheim. In the Night, with Prompto so close, he’d wanted to say something about it for years. He still does. Now, seeing him aching and grieving and miserable, the desire rises up in his throat again. Maybe he should heed his feelings for once.

Maybe he’ll tell Prompto about it one day.

Prompto. It’d been a play on words at first. The little child had been quick to cry and quick to laugh and quick to learn and grow and become more than just the Lucians’ latest prize in a losing war. Cor had named him out of necessity and out of jest, desperate to stop calling the child by his number or just as “boy”. And then the name had stuck, and Cor had started realizing that his little prisoner was a child too.

In Niflheim, his eyes had been a deep, warm purple, almost completely red. They had been a constant reminder that the baby in his arms was not just a regular child, and that the entire mission hinged on the code on the baby’s wrist and whatever poisonous miasma was glowing through his eyes. They’d grown bluer as they’d crossed the sea and entered Lucis. When they’d finally made it past the Wall and into the safety of the last bastion against Niflheim, the red had faded almost entirely, leaving the faintest cast of violet to the child’s gaze.

In an odd way, Cor had missed the ethereal scarlet of Prompto’s poisoned gaze as it faded. It made him feel as if he had a kindred spirit in the world, even though Niflheim’s influence was anything but godly.

Prompto’s new veins seem like a compromise, like the gods have deigned to meet him halfway.

Cor stares once more at the forged certificate and shuffles through the remaining documents in the file. There are photographs in here too. Some of them are Cor’s own, taken as reconnaissance behind enemy lines when he’d strapped a child against his chest and run for their lives. Others are newer, crisper and crisper as they inch closer to the time of the Fall. The Argentum house. Prompto walking home from school. Prompto and the prince, unaware of the observations of their protectors.

He should have known that they would never allow an asset to go unwatched. 

That brings up another flash of resentment for everyone who chose to force them apart. Prompto would have been perfectly safe under his roof, and the whole of Lucis would not have had to live under the falsehood that their precious city was perfect when they truly had a _weapon-_

No. He is not what they made him; Cor knows this. He remembers the child.

Other pages in the file list Council meeting notes detailing the Council’s decision to not let the child stay in government hands. Things about proximity to the Crystal and the choice not to make a weapon out of a child. 

He sets the pages aside in disgust. On a night like this, where already he’s dealing with the near-loss of one of his charges, he doesn’t think he’s equipped for this, Immortal or no. There must be something else to pique his interest that Clarus had deemed important in the days before the Fall. What could he have thought he should know? What would he have reminded himself of?

Clarus must have known.

There are a few sentimental items scattered among the official memos and documents: handwritten cards in children’s scrawls, photographs of the Amicitia family propped up against the lamp. This casual indulgence is so unlike Clarus. He used to never reveal that he was anything less than disciplined. It seems that the knowledge of some impending tragedy had gotten him to thaw his heart, if only a bit.

There’s more.

He tugs a lone sheet of paper out from where it sticks out of a book, as if it were used as a bookmark or it had been haphazardly shoved there. Whether for safekeeping or for secrecy, Cor doesn’t know.

It’s a photocopy of a page from some ancient tome, clearly well-used if the scrawls across it are any indication. It’s marked by a note from Regis to Clarus, urging him to understand. Cor pushes the note aside and frowns down at the text. Words are circled and underlined, and lines crisscross the page to link to little annotations. Some of it is just history, two thousand years old by the looks of it. Cor sees the name of the Founder King and Bahamut and a mention of the Crystal. He knows this story well enough.

The prophecy.

And at the bottom of the page, written in a firm, lonely script where no annotations can reach it, Regis has written  _ Noct.  _

His vision runs red.

Regis had known all along. Regis had known, and he had sent Noctis off like a lamb to slaughter, and then he had  _ died- _

And for what?

More death. More misery. The agony of his son. The death of the sun.

_ Cor,  _ murmurs the thunderous voice inside his head, piercing through the redness even as it fuels it and makes static crackle down his spine.  _ Remember your purpose. _

“The king,” he says aloud, and to his ears his own voice sounds small and human. He stares down at his hands and the paper and he realizes that he’s nearly crumpled it beneath his fingers. Slowly, like a machine stirred to life after so long lying dormant, he opens the vicelike grip of his fingers, listening to the miserable crinkling of the paper. It barely straightens itself out after he drops it to the desk, crushed into submission by the might of the gods. And he hadn’t even realized. His mother - or what he remembers of her, or what he tells himself he does - had told him the story of a king who turned everything he touched to gold. Cor, naive and idealistic, had wished every day for that sort of miracle. Now, with red in his vision and thunder in his bones, he regrets ever wishing for the gift of a fairy tale.

Every king he touches dies. 

And now, even after the resurrection of the last of the Lucis Caelums, death still clings to the legacy of the kings. Cor can’t stop thinking about the king’s blood on the hands of his closest friends. Scarlet beneath fingernails; crimson streaked on the skin of boys Cor has watched grown into men. And always, with the King of Light, the smell of burning; of ashes. Noctis’s blood. Regis’s blood.

He should’ve prevented this. His entire life is owed to the line of kings. Everything he’s ever done, everything he has become, has always been for their sake.

Ramuh had found him, staggering out of the Tempering Grounds, offering to give him a way to escape from Taelpar unharmed. He’d said that he could give Cor the power to protect Mors and Regis and every Caelum thereafter. The power of the astrals, he’d promised, for the good of the kings. For the good of the world. And Cor, fifteen and reckless and too delirious to have reflected on the lessons of Gilgamesh, had accepted.

He doesn’t know the Messenger’s name. He doesn’t need to. He doesn’t care.

The power of the Fulgurian is fickle in its availability to him. Cor has always suspected that his divine passenger holds the reins as far as that’s concerned. It’s not too much of a problem. If he’s being honest, he rather likes it that way. He’d risen to the top using the skill of his own body.

For so long, it had been easy to forget. The passenger in his bones had faded into subconsciousness for years after Taelpar, making reappearances to lend its strength to Cor’s for the good of whatever king was alive. With the waking of the gods and the collapse of Insomnia and Cor’s livelihood, though, he’d started feeling thunder in his chest.

Cor sees the truth of it now. He sees the cruel joke in the mercy of the astrals. 

The price of life is more life. His life for the gods’ will, for the prophecy. For the death of every king who comes before the Chosen King. For the coming of the Night. For the death of Noctis. It’s not his fault - fate would have rocketed into motion anyway - but his choice can't have helped. With a warrior to guide him in his quest to assemble the power of the Lucii, how could Noctis not speed towards his fate? He could have had more time. They all could have had more time.

All so Cor could cling to life.

When he’d written to Clarus, he’d left that out. He was healthy and safe, was all he’d said. 

It hadn’t been a lie. He’d never lie to Clarus.

But it hadn’t been the truth either.

_ This is what you wanted,  _ the voice insists, sounding like Ramuh and his mother and every Messenger and astral he has ever raged against.  _ This is what you agreed to. For the king. _

“Which king?” he whispers, though he knows they will not answer. He’s supposed to know. He does, probably, but he prefers to stay ignorant sometimes. Sometimes, it’s just easier. Safer. Safer than remembering long-dead kings and a child he’d brought through the winter.

Cor smooths his hand along the dusty desk, struggling not to dig his nails into the wood. He won't mar this last bit of Clarus's legacy. Gladio can have the baubles and weapons and gold. All Cor wants is to end this vicious cycle of blame and sacrifice and fate. He wants to serve a king again. He wants to be himself again. 

“I failed a child once,” he whispers into the still, cold air. He clenches his fist around nothingness and wishes he could summon lightning to his grasp, if only to let him  _ feel  _ something. “Don’t make me fail your sons too.”

Why else would he still be alive, if not for this?

Who does he go to for help?

Cid’s in Lestallum and Cor hasn’t heard from Weskham in years. Clarus’s body is buried with the rest of the Amicitias, and Regis is-

Regis-

Cor has still never told any of them what happened when he’d found the king. He remembers the rainfall. Drautos’s body under his fists, a vehicle for his explosive, violent mourning. He remembers the phone call. Leading Noctis to Hammerhead first, buying himself more time. Posing as a refugee, slipping out of Insomnia carrying the body of his oldest friend. Laying Regis to rest in the best place he could find until the day when he'd be able to come back for him.

Mourning alone.

How much longer can he watch kings fall?

_ You’ll be done soon,  _ the voice promises.  _ When the time comes, you are free to go.  _

“When the king dies,” Cor snorts, because he knows, somehow, that his fate and the king’s are tied. Like Gilgamesh. Like Gladio. A thrall, a guard, a lionheart. He can be that for Noctis, as he was for Regis and for Mors before him. 

He can be that for as long as he’s needed.

He sits heavily down in the desk chair and rests his forehead on the desk for a moment, relishing the coolness against his forehead. “He came close tonight,” he murmurs, continuing a conversation with the part of himself that will not answer.

He’d almost lost another king. The same king, again. Cor knows that one day Noct will die, and that that day may indeed signal his own death knell, but it hurts nonetheless to be confronted once more with the loss of a Lucis Caelum.

Cor doesn’t think he’s ever even had the chance to mourn for Regis.

“I miss you,” he whispers into the empty air. He’s not sure who he’s talking to. Clarus’s ghost won’t hear him here; Clarus’s bones are laid to rest deep beneath the Citadel along with Regis. There is nothing in this house but memory and useless regret.

Nobody answers. Nobody ever does.

With a sigh, he sits up, blinking into the half-light of the skeleton home. He shoves the papers into one of his jacket pockets to investigate later. He stands to leave and make a solemn retreat back through darkened streets to the Citadel where he belongs, but his eye catches a glimpse of something before he can complete the motion. He drops back down on the chair and stares at the one thing he’d overlooked.

And there, sparkling dully from the edge of the desk, sits a rock.

It’s an unassuming object at first glance, and to many it must seem to be a misshapen paper weight. But it stirs up emotions that Cor hasn’t felt since he was a teenager. It makes him remember a time when he’d fought a war and when he’d had all his friends before everything had fallen apart. And here, in the ruins of Clarus’s home, is this stone.

He’d nearly forgotten it; he can’t believe that Clarus kept it so close. He can’t believe Clarus kept it in plain sight. This thing used to be  _ theirs.  _

He remembers that night on the slopes of Ravatogh, when they had watched the Wall retreat to Insomnia. With Accordo fallen, they were already on their way back, but the retreat of the magic of Lucis had only hastened their journey. But that night, warm by the light of Ifrit’s resting place, they had allowed themselves a moment of peace.

He reaches out and grabs the stone; holds it close. Studies it. It’s still got all of their bits and pieces. Their marks, left as a final collection of themselves. Somehow, they’d all known that this night would be one of their last. Somehow, they’d all known that peace would never find them again.

Weskham’s scrawling signature, etched by knifepoint into the rock. 

A smear of dark metal on one side, melted and dripped and cooled by Cid. 

Clarus’s small eagle pin from his uniform, wedged into a crack in the stone so that it lies flat against the smooth gray face.

The warmth of the stone, even after decades of love and neglect and horror, speaks of the tiny ember that Regis had coaxed into life within the heart of the stone. It remains, even now, as a final remnant of Regis in this world.

And Cor’s contribution, barely visible. Hardly noticeable. Quiet and steadfast and ever-present, though. Immortal. Sand from the slopes of Ravatogh, immortalized into crystal by the power at Cor’s fingertips.

Cor stares down at it; he feels like call to like, and his passenger calls out to the fragment of itself in the stone of the dead and the undying. It reminds him of the purpose of his journey; of his immortality and his power. No matter how much it hurts, he is still here. He can still be here for the king. Son of his friend, King of Light, favorite of the gods. It can be the two of them, fate-touched, working to bring Lucis to the glory it has always deserved.

The stone is a nice reminder of that promise. He tucks it into his pocket, close to his heart where he can feel its weight and its undying warmth. It reminds him of Regis.

Walking out of the Amicitia house and into the night, it reminds him of home, too.


End file.
